Nagad, the mobile financial service arm of the Bangladesh Post Office, wants to lead the MFS sector in the country within this year with the rolling out of some fresh technological innovations.
Nagad also wants to launch the digital banking initiative within this year, which would also be the first of its kind by any MFS carrier in the country.
"Hopefully, we'll be the number one in Bangladesh within this year with the rolling out of some technological innovations and advancements......we'll be on the top," said Maruful Islam Jhalak, the executive director of Nagad while talking to BSS.
Jhalak, who is at the helm of Nagad's overall technological innovations, claimed that this MFS carrier is now far ahead than other MFS carriers of the country in terms of application of modern and state of the art technology.
He opined that Nagad has recently reached the milestone of enjoying nearly a Taka 1,000 crore transaction in a single day mostly due to the easy account opening process alongside the lowest cash out facility in the market.
Jhalak, who also looks after Nagad's technology and business assurance division, opined that through efficiency, innovation, and transformation, it is possible to further enhance the excellence, which the Nagad is pursuing relentlessly.
Shedding lights on the theme of launching digital banking service in the country through MFS carrier, he informed that they are planning to roll out this branchless service within this year subject to the approval of the Bangladesh Bank.
"It will be a revolution in the country where the countrywide Nagad registered agents will work for disseminating the services of digital banking to the customers," he added.
The Nagad executive director said that newer technology would be adopted so that foolproof security could be ensured in the transaction process of Nagad side by side to bring down the incidents of fraudulence to the minimum level.
He mentioned that the use of the PRISM app from March of last year has helped them to analyze better market situations and thus enabled them to reach near the mark of Taka 1,000 crore single-day transactions within a short period of time.
Asked about the potentials of the MFS sector, Jhalak said that without transforming the financial industry, there is no other way to enhance financial inclusion and upgrade the country's position as a developed nation.
Apart from the market leader bkash, Nagad is also leading from the front with its innovative service backed by the state of the art technology.
"In only three years, we've registered about 6.25 crore customers and our daily transaction hit about Taka 1,000 crore which is the ultimate result of using technology," Jhalak added.
Nagad has introduced the first electronic know your customer (e-KYC) in the country and that was the initial step of the company to move into massive technological innovations.
Using the e-KYC account opening with smart phones using the internet was also a rare incident at that time.
Dialing only *167# even from a basic mobile phone and setting a four-digit password has been the easiest way so far.
"Moving with this technological advancement, we have established partnership with the mobile phone operators and opened up a locked window to the hard to reach users who even could never think of using digital financial service," Jhalak added.
After the serial innovation in the market, the mobile payment numbers have now reached a moderate level in Bangladesh.
According to the Bangladesh Bank data, about Taka 78,000 crore were transacted in last March though this channel where Nagad has a fair share.
Just before Nagad launched its service, the average transaction was about Taka 30,000 crore and since then it has grown by two and a half times where technological innovations have played a massive role. Transactions through the MFS doubled during the Covid-19 pandemic while the upward trend is expected to continue.